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"VENTRY, a parish, in the barony of CORKAGUINEY, county of KERRY, and province of MUNSTER, 4½ miles (W.) from Dingle; containing 2596 inhabitants. The parish is situated in the interior of a harbour of the same name, on the northern slope of Dingle bay and near Dunmore Head, the most western point of Ireland: it contains 7087 statute acres, of which 2268 are coarse mountain land and bog.
The harbour is spacious and is considered to be a dependency on the port of Dingle, being seperated from it by a narrow peninsula, concerning which there is a tradition that it was the last ground possessed by the danes in Ireland, which is somewhat corroborated by a statement given in the "Book of Howth", that a great battle was fought here between the Irish and the Danes. The harbour is exposed to the gales from the south-east. On its western point, called Cahir Trant, is an ancient Danish intrenchment, and at Rathlanane are the remains of an old castle of the Knight of Kerry.
At a place called Fane, or Fahan, is a small cell or hermitage with a pointed roof of stone. There is a coastguard station at East Coumtra, belonging to the Dingle district.
The living is a rectory and vicarage, in the diocese of Ardfert and Aghadoe, and in the patronage of the Representatives of the Rev. John Crosbie: the tithes amount to £120; the glebe, which is in three portions, contains 4a. 3r. 25p. The clerical duties are performed by the curate of the neighbouring parish of Dunurlin.
In the R.C. divisions this parish forms part of the union or district of Dingle, and has a chapel in the village of Ventry.
About 30 children are educated in a private school.
Ventry gives the title of Baron to the family of Mullins."
[From A Topographical Dictionary of Ireland by Samuel Lewis (1837)]
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| Ventry Burial Ground |
Names of Heads of Households in Ventry Parish extracted from Griffiths' Valuation 1852, transcribed by John Hayes.
Household schedules for censuses prior to 1901 have been destroyed.
The 1901 and 1911 censuses have been scanned by the Church of Latter Day Saints and made available digitally by the National Archives of Ireland. The census returns are organised by District Electoral Division and not by Civil Parish. The Ventry DED includes the entirety of Ventry Parish and parts of Ballinvoher and Marhin parishes.
The following links lead to a list of townlands in Ventry District Electoral Division from which each townland can be browsed:
- 1901 Census: Ventry DED
- 1911 Census: Ventry DED
The search pages, linked below, can be used to search for individuals by name and county, DED and townland selected:
- 1901/1911 Census: Search Page
| Ventry Burial Ground |
| St Catherine, Ventry, Catholic |
In the Church of Ireland Ventry parish was united with Dingle in 1900. From 1841-48 Ventry and Dunurlin were a combined rectory. By the 1850s Ventry had absorbed Kildrum parish. The ancient parish church once stood in the burial ground adjacent to the strand.
John O'Donovan, writing in 1841, stated:
" The old church in Ventry is situated on the strand of Ventry Fionntráigh towards the extremity. it is not an old edifice though now in a state of great dilipidation...
There are many skulls scattered about in the strand some of which have the jaws and teeth in excellent preservation."
There are now no visible remains of the ancient church. A new Church of Ireland church for Ventry was built later in the nineteenth century near the village centre but in Kildrum parish. The church was deconsecrated on 31 August 1960 and demolished.
In the Roman Catholic church Ventry was part of Dingle parish by 1825. A new chapel was constructed in Ventry dedicated to St. Kathleen (Naomh Cáitlín), the present building dating from 1881.
The Church of Ireland parish registers of baptisms for 1844-1923, marriages 1845-1939 and burials 1839-1957 survive at the Representative Church Body Library. Some entries have been transcribed and can be searched at the Irish Genealogy Website which also has scans of the original registers.
The registers for the Roman Catholic parish of Dingle cover baptisms from 1825, and marriages from 1821.
The registers remain in the custody of the parish priest, although microfilm copies are at the National Library of Ireland.
They can be accessed at this link: https://registers.nli.ie/parishes/0665
These registers have been partially transcribed and can be searched at the Irish Genealogy Website.
From 1863 Dingle was part of the Ventry Registration District, and the Registrar's District of Dingle. See the Registration Districts page.
A Description of the Ventry area extracted from The Dingle Peninsula by Steve McDonagh, on the site of Dingle Peninsula Tourism.
- The transcription of the section for Ventry from the National Gazetteer (1868) provided by Colin Hinson.
- Ask for a calculation of the distance from Ventry to another place.
You can see maps centred on OSI grid reference V3639999964 (Lat/Lon: 52.127807, -10.38976), Ventry which are provided by:
- OpenStreetMap
- Google Maps
- Bing (was Multimap)
- Copy
Ventryand paste it along with the county name into the search box at Ordnance Survey Ireland. - GeoHack (Links to on-line maps and location specific services.)
- All places within the same township/parish shown on an Openstreetmap map.
- Nearby townships/parishes shown on an Openstreetmap map.
- Nearby places shown on an Openstreetmap map.